Product video

Product Video

Turn a product and a goal into a complete Product Video Production Spec — one chosen video concept, a beat-by-beat shot list with timings, an animation and pacing plan, and generation-ready keyframe prompts. The governing principle: one video communicates one thing. Every beat either builds toward the single message (the reveal, the benefit, the transformation) or it gets cut. You produce the plan and the keyframes; rendering the motion happens downstream.

When to use / when not to

• Use for product-centric motion content: reveals, feature showcases, product-in-action, transformations, 360 spins.
• If the video is fronted by a person (presenter, testimonial, UGC) → use skills/creative/talking-head.
• If the video will be rendered programmatically in Remotion (UI demos, code tutorials, data viz) → use skills/creative/remotion-script-writer; you can still run this skill first to define concept and beats, then hand the beat sheet over.
• If the user needs static assets (posts, banners) → skills/creative/social-graphics.
• If there is no brand style guide yet and the user cares about brand consistency → run skills/creative/creative-strategist first; its style guide feeds this skill.

Intake

Ask in one tight batch, only what's missing:

1. Product — what is it and what's the one thing the video must communicate (new launch? a feature? a benefit? a before/after)?
2. Where it runs — TikTok/Reels/Shorts, product page, YouTube pre-roll, trade show loop? (This decides aspect ratio, duration, pacing.)
3. What the viewer should do after — the CTA.
4. Brand style — is there a skills/creative/creative-strategist style guide or existing brand assets to match?

Infer from context instead of asking: aspect ratio from platform, mood from product category, style from any existing brand materials in the project. Don't stall: if the product and goal are clear, state your assumptions for the rest ("Assuming Reels, 12s, vertical, energetic — say otherwise") and proceed.

Workflow

1. Choose the video type (decision rule, not a menu)

If the message is…	Type	Duration	Beat structure
"This exists / it's new"	Reveal	5–15s	hidden/obscured → reveal animation (fade, slide, rotate) → hero shot
"It does these 2–4 things"	Feature Showcase	15–30s	feature 1 highlight → feature 2 → feature 3 → full product
"Here's the benefit in use"	In Action	10–20s	product in environment → product being used → outcome shown
"Look at the change"	Transformation	10–15s	before state → morph → after state
"Just show the object" (e-commerce, listings)	360 Spin	5–10s	continuous smooth rotation, clean background

Commit to one type with a one-line reason. Offer a single backup only if two genuinely fit. Never showcase more than 4 features — cut to the strongest.

2. Set pacing from platform

• Fast (5–10s, quick snappy cuts): social feeds, ads, anything skippable. Hook in the first 2 seconds.
• Medium (10–20s, smooth transitions): product pages, marketing site, email embeds.
• Slow (20–30s, deliberate luxurious moves): premium/luxury products, storytelling. Only choose slow if the product's price point earns the patience.

Aspect ratio by placement: 9:16 vertical (TikTok/Reels/Shorts/Stories), 16:9 (YouTube, web hero), 1:1 or 4:5 (feed posts). These map directly to --aspect-ratio values in the CLI.

3. Pick one animation style

Match to brand personality — pick exactly one and use its phrase verbatim in every keyframe prompt so frames stay consistent:

Brand feel	Style	Prompt phrase
Elegant, calm	Smooth Fade	"smooth fade transitions, gentle pacing, elegant"
Modern, energetic	Dynamic Slide	"dynamic slide transitions, elements slide in, energetic pacing"
Cinematic, bold	Zoom & Rotate	"zoom and rotate moves, dynamic pacing, cinematic"
Sophisticated, fluid	Morphing	"smooth morphing transitions, fluid animation, sophisticated"
High-tech	Particle Effects	"particle effects, product materializes/dissolves, high-tech"

4. Write the beat sheet

Break the duration into 3–6 beats. For each beat: time range, what's on screen, camera/motion, and the transition out. Every beat must advance the single message; the last beat always holds the product + CTA for ≥2 seconds.

5. Write keyframe prompts

One keyframe per beat (two for a transformation's before/after). Each prompt = subject + state at that beat + the animation-style phrase + lighting + the same style/lighting descriptors across all frames (consistency is what makes frames read as one video). All keyframes use identical background and lighting descriptions unless the beat explicitly changes location.

If FAL_API_KEY (or FAL_KEY) is set, generate the keyframes now with the repo CLI — model fal-ai/nano-banana-pro via docs/fal_api.py:

python docs/creative_cli.py custom \
  --category "video-keyframes" --name "beat-1-hero" \
  --prompt "<keyframe prompt>" --aspect-ratio 9:16 --resolution 2K

If no key is set, deliver the prompts as ready-to-run commands. Note: nano-banana-pro generates still keyframes only — the motion between them is produced downstream (Remotion, a video generation tool, or an editor).

6. Self-check against the quality bar, then deliver the spec.

Required output format

Always deliver this structure:

# Product Video Production Spec — [Product]

## Overview
- **Message (one sentence):** ...
- **Type:** Reveal | Feature Showcase | In Action | Transformation | 360 Spin — [one-line reason]
- **Platform / placement:** ... · **Aspect ratio:** ... · **Duration:** ...s · **Pacing:** Fast/Medium/Slow
- **Animation style:** [style + verbatim prompt phrase]
- **CTA:** ...

## Beat sheet
| # | Time | On screen | Camera / motion | Transition out |
|---|------|-----------|-----------------|----------------|
| 1 | 0–3s | ... | ... | ... |
| 2 | 3–7s | ... | ... | ... |
(final beat: product + CTA, held ≥2s)

## Keyframes
### KF-1 (beat 1) — [label]
> [full nano-banana-pro prompt]
`python docs/creative_cli.py custom --category "video-keyframes" --name "kf-1" --prompt "..." --aspect-ratio [ratio] --resolution 2K`
(repeat per beat; identical style/lighting descriptors across all)

## Audio direction
- Music: [genre/energy matched to pacing] · Sound design: [key moments] · VO: [none, or one line per beat]

## Production notes
- [render path: Remotion via skills/creative/remotion-script-writer / video gen tool / editor]
- [anything beat-specific: logo timing, text overlays, loop point for trade-show/spin videos]

Quality bar (check before delivering)

• One message; if you can't state it in one sentence, restart at step 1.
• Hook lands within the first 2 seconds for Fast pacing, 4 for Medium.
• Beat count 3–6; no beat shorter than 1.5s; timings sum exactly to the stated duration.
• Every keyframe prompt contains the same animation-style phrase and the same lighting/background descriptors (unless the beat changes location) — inconsistent frames are the #1 failure mode.
• Prompts specify "smooth", "fluid" motion language — never leave motion quality implicit.
• CTA present in the final beat, held ≥2 seconds.
• No invented performance claims ("this format gets 3x engagement") — pacing/duration guidance above is heuristic, label it as such if asked.

Integration

• skills/creative/creative-strategist → feeds in: the style guide (colors, mood, lighting language) that all keyframe prompts must obey.
• skills/creative/product-photography → feeds in: existing hero-shot prompts/lighting setups reused as the video's hero frame for consistency.
• skills/creative/image-generation → consumes: keyframe prompts, if the user wants deeper control over generation than the CLI one-liners.
• skills/creative/remotion-script-writer → consumes: the beat sheet + keyframes, when the video will be rendered as a Remotion composition.
• skills/creative/social-graphics → consumes: hero keyframes as source imagery for supporting static posts.